This is kind of unprecedented, but Tesla might just open up its electric car patents to other manufacturers. On June 3, at Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, Elon Musk, the company’s CEO, said that to drive the adoption of electric cars, Tesla was “playing with doing something fairly significant on this front which would be kind of controversial with respect to Tesla’s patents.” Three days later, he told the BBC’s Theo Leggett that he was on the right track when asked if he was planning to give technology away.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has given the strongest hint yet that the firm is considering “freeing” its patents to help speed up electric car development. When asked by the BBC’s Theo Leggett if he was considering giving technology away, Mr Musk said “you’re on the right track”. Mr Musk said he hoped to break down technological barriers to help speed up electric car adoption. The firm will deliver the first five of its Model S cars to the UK on Saturday. Mr Musk told the BBC: “We don’t want to cut a path through the jungle and then lay a bunch of landmines behind us.” Earlier this week, Mr Musk told Tesla shareholders that in order to speed up the pace of adoption of electric cars, Tesla was “playing with doing something fairly significant on this front which would be kind of controversial with respect to Tesla’s patents”.